CTSH, §1A diff (2018 → 2019)

Item 1A. Risk Factors Factors That May Affect Future Results We face various important risks and uncertainties, including those described below, that could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition and, as a result, cause a decline in the trading price of our common stock. Our results of operations could be adversely affected by economic and political conditions globally and in particular in the markets in which our clients and operations are concentrated. Global macroeconomic conditions have a significant effect on our business as well as the businesses of our clients. Volatile, negative or uncertain economic conditions could cause our clients to reduce, postpone or cancel spending on projects with us and could make it more difficult for us to accurately forecast client demand and have available the right resources to profitably address such client demand. The short-term nature of contracts in our industry means that actions by clients may occur quickly and with little warning, which may cause us to incur extra costs where we have employed more professionals than client demand supports. Our business is particularly susceptible to economic and political conditions in the markets where our clients or operations are concentrated. Our revenues are highly dependent on clients located in the United States and Europe, and any adverse economic, political or legal uncertainties or adverse developments, including due to the uncertainty related to the potential economic and regulatory impacts of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, may cause clients in these geographies to reduce their spending and materially adversely impact our business. Many of our clients are in the financial services and healthcare industries, so any decrease in growth or significant consolidation in these industries or regulatory policies that restrict these industries may reduce demand for our services. Economic and political developments in India, where a significant majority of our operations and technical professionals are located, or in other countries where we maintain delivery operations, may also have a significant impact on our business and costs of operations. As a developing country, India has experienced and may continue to experience high inflation and wage growth, fluctuations in gross domestic product growth and volatility in currency exchange rates, any of which could materially adversely affect our cost of operations. Additionally, we benefit from governmental policies in India that encourage foreign investment and promote the ease of doing business, such as tax incentives, and any change in policy or circumstances that results in the elimination of such benefits or degradation of the rule of law, or imposition of new adverse restrictions or costs on our operations could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. If we are unable to attract, train and retain skilled professionals, including highly skilled technical personnel to satisfy client demand and senior management to lead our business globally, our business and results of operations may be materially adversely affected. Our success is dependent, in large part, on our ability to keep our supply of skilled professionals, including project managers, IT engineers and senior technical personnel, in balance with client demand around the world and on our ability to attract and retain senior management with the knowledge and skills to lead our business globally. Each year, we must hire tens of thousands of new professionals and reskill, retain, and motivate our workforce of hundreds of thousands of professionals with diverse skills and expertise in order to serve client demands across the globe, respond quickly to rapid and ongoing technological, industry and macroeconomic developments and grow and manage our business. We also must continue to maintain an effective senior leadership team that, among other things, is effective in executing on our strategic goals and growing our digital business. The loss of senior executives, or the failure to attract, integrate and retain new senior executives as the needs of our business require, could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations. Competition for skilled labor is intense and, in some jurisdictions in which we operate, there are more jobs for IT professionals than qualified persons to fill these jobs. Our business has experienced significant employee attrition, which may cause us to incur increased costs to hire new professionals with the desired skills. Costs associated with recruiting and training professionals are significant. If we are unable to hire or deploy professionals with the needed skillsets or if we are unable to adequately equip our professionals with the skills needed, this could materially adversely affect our business. Additionally, if we are unable to maintain an employee environment that is competitive and contemporary, it could have an adverse effect on engagement and retention, which may materially adversely affect our business. We face challenges related to growing our business organically as well as inorganically through acquisitions, and we may not be able to achieve our targeted growth rates. Achievement of our targeted growth rates requires continued significant organic growth of our business as well as inorganic growth through acquisitions. To achieve such growth, we must, among other things, continue to significantly expand our global operations, increase our product and service offerings, in particular with respect to digital, and scale our infrastructure to support such business growth. Continued business growth increases the complexity of our business and places significant strain on our management, personnel, operations, systems, technical performance, financial resources, and internal financial control and reporting functions, which we will have to continue to develop and improve to sustain such growth. We must continually recruit and train new personnel and retain and reskill, as necessary, existing sales, technical, finance, marketing and management personnel with the knowledge, skills and experience that our business model requires and effectively manage our personnel worldwide to support our culture, values, strategies and goals. Additionally, we expect to continue pursuing strategic and targeted acquisitions, investments and joint ventures to enhance our offerings of services and solutions or to enable us to expand in certain geographic and other markets. We may not be successful in identifying suitable opportunities, completing targeted transactions or achieving the desired results, and such opportunities may divert our management's time and focus away from our core business. We may face challenges in effectively integrating acquired businesses into our ongoing operations and in assimilating and retaining employees of those businesses into our culture and organizational structure. If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, complete acquisitions of the number, magnitude and nature we have targeted, or successfully integrate any acquired businesses into our operations, we may not be able to achieve our targeted growth rates or improve our market share, profitability or competitive position generally or in specific markets or services. We may not be able to achieve our profitability and capital return goals. Our goals for profitability and capital return rely upon a number of assumptions, including our ability to improve the efficiency of our operations and make successful investments to grow and further develop our business. Our profitability depends on the efficiency with which we run our operations and the cost of our operations, especially the compensation and benefits costs of the professionals we employ. We have incurred, and expect to continue to incur, substantial costs related to implementing our strategy to optimize such costs, and we may not realize the ultimate cost savings that we expect. We may not be able to efficiently utilize our professionals if increased regulation, policy changes or administrative burdens of immigration, work visas or outsourcing prevents us from deploying our professionals globally on a timely basis, or at all, to fulfill the needs of our clients. Increases in wages and other costs may put pressure on our profitability. Fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates can also have adverse effects on our revenues, income from operations and net income when items originally denominated in other currencies are translated or remeasured into U.S. dollars for presentation of our consolidated financial statements. We have entered into foreign exchange forward contracts intended to partially offset the impact of the movement of the exchange rates on future operating costs and to mitigate foreign currency risk on foreign currency denominated net monetary assets. However, the hedging strategies that we have implemented, or may in the future implement, to mitigate foreign currency exchange rate risks may not reduce or completely offset our exposure to foreign exchange rate fluctuations and may expose our business to unexpected market, operational and counterparty credit risks. We are particularly susceptible to wage and cost pressures in India and the exchange rate of the Indian rupee relative to the currencies of our client contracts due to the fact that the substantial majority of our employees are in India while our contracts with clients are typically in the local currency of the country where our clients are located. If we are unable to improve the efficiency of our operations, our operating margin may decline and our business, results of operations and financial condition may be materially adversely affected. Failure to achieve our profitability goals could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. With respect to capital return, our ability and decisions to pay dividends and repurchase shares consistent with our announced goals or at all depend on a variety of factors, including our cash flow generated from operations, the amount and geographic location of our cash and investment balances, our net income, our overall liquidity position, potential alternative uses of cash, such as acquisitions, and anticipated future economic conditions and financial results. Failure to achieve our capital return goals may adversely impact our reputation with shareholders and shareholders’ perception of our business and the value of our common stock. Our failure to meet specified service levels or milestones required by certain of our client contracts may result in our client contracts being less profitable, potential liability for penalties or damages or reputational harm. Many of our client contracts include clauses that tie our compensation to the achievement of agreed-upon performance standards or milestones. Failure to satisfy these measures could significantly reduce or eliminate our fees under the contracts, increase the cost to us of meeting performance standards or milestones, delay expected payments, subject us to potential damage claims under the contract terms or harm our reputation. The use of new technologies in our offerings can expose us to additional risks if those technologies fail to work as predicted, or there are unintended consequences of new designs or uses, which could lead to cost overruns, project delays, financial penalties, or damage to our reputation. Clients also often have the right to terminate a contract and pursue damage claims for serious or repeated failure to meet these service commitments. Some of our contracts provide that a portion of our compensation depends on performance measures such as cost-savings, revenue enhancement, benefits produced, business goals attained and adherence to schedule. These goals can be complex and may depend on our clients’ actual levels of business activity or may be based on assumptions that are later determined not to be achievable or accurate. As such, these provisions may increase the variability in revenues and margins earned on those contracts. We face intense and evolving competition and significant technological advances that our service offerings must keep pace with in the rapidly changing markets we compete in. The markets we serve and operate in are highly competitive, subject to rapid change and characterized by a large number of participants, as described in “Part I, Item 1. Business-Competition.” In addition to large, global competitors, we face competition from numerous smaller, local competitors in many geographic markets that may have more experience with operations in these markets, have well-established relationships with our desired clients, or be able to provide services and solutions at lower costs or on terms more attractive to clients than we can. Consolidation activity may also result in new competitors with greater scale, a broader footprint or vertical integration that makes them more attractive to clients as a single provider of integrated products and services. In addition, the short-term nature of contracts in our industry and the long-term concurrent use by many clients of multiple professional service providers means that we are required to be continually competitive on the quality, scope and pricing of our offerings or face a reduction or elimination of our business. Our success depends on our ability to continue to develop and implement services and solutions that anticipate and respond to rapid and continuing changes in technology to serve the evolving needs of our clients. Examples of areas of significant change include digital-, cloud- and security-related offerings, which are continually evolving, as well as developments in areas such as AI, augmented reality, automation, blockchain, IoT, quantum computing and as-a-service solutions. If we do not sufficiently invest in new technologies, successfully adapt to industry developments and changing demand, and evolve and expand our business at sufficient speed and scale to keep pace with the demands of the markets we serve, we may be unable to develop and maintain a competitive advantage and execute on our growth strategy, which would materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Our relationships with our third party alliance partners, who supply us with necessary components to the services and solutions we offer our clients, are also critical to our ability to provide many of our services and solutions that address client demands. There can be no assurance that we will be able to maintain such relationships. Among other things, such alliance partners may in the future decide to compete with us, form exclusive or more favorable arrangements with our competitors or otherwise reduce our access to their products impairing our ability to provide the services and solutions demanded by clients. We face legal, reputational and financial risks if we fail to protect client and/or Cognizant data from security breaches or cyberattacks. In order to provide our services and solutions, we depend on global information technology networks and systems, including those of third parties, to process, transmit, host and securely store electronic information (including our confidential information and the confidential information of our clients) and to communicate among our locations around the world and with our clients, suppliers and partners. Security breaches, employee malfeasance, or human or technological error could lead to shutdowns or disruptions of our operations and potential unauthorized disclosure of our or our clients’ sensitive data, which in turn could jeopardize projects that are critical to our operations or the operations of our clients’ businesses. Like other global companies, we and the businesses we interact with have experienced threats to data and systems, including by perpetrators of random or targeted malicious cyberattacks, computer viruses, malware, worms, bot attacks or other destructive or disruptive software and attempts to misappropriate client information and cause system failures and disruptions. A security compromise of our information systems or of those of businesses with whom we interact that results in confidential information being accessed by unauthorized or improper persons could harm our reputation and expose us to regulatory actions, client attrition, remediation expenses, disruption of our business, and claims brought by our clients or others for breaching contractual confidentiality and security provisions or data protection laws. Monetary damages imposed on us could be significant and not covered by our liability insurance. Techniques used by bad actors to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage systems evolve frequently and may not immediately produce signs of intrusion, and we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. In addition, a security breach could require that we expend substantial additional resources related to the security of our information systems, diverting resources from other projects and disrupting our businesses. If we experience a data security breach, our reputation could be damaged and we could be subject to additional litigation, regulatory risks and business losses. We are required to comply with increasingly complex and changing data security and privacy regulations in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and in other jurisdictions in which we operate that regulate the collection, use and transfer of personal data, including the transfer of personal data between or among countries. For example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation has imposed stringent compliance obligations regarding the handling of personal data and has resulted in the issuance of significant financial penalties for noncompliance. In the United States, there have been proposals for federal privacy legislation and many new state privacy laws are on the horizon. Recently enacted legislation, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, impose extensive privacy requirements on organizations governing personal information. Existing US sectoral laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also impose extensive privacy and security requirements on organizations operating in the healthcare industry, which Cognizant serves. Additionally, in India, the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018 was recently cleared for introduction in the current session of the Indian Parliament. If enacted in its current form it would impose stringent obligations on the handling of personal data, including certain localization requirements for sensitive data. Other countries have enacted or are considering enacting data localization laws that require certain data to stay within their borders. We may also face audits or investigations by one or more domestic or foreign government agencies or our clients pursuant to our contractual obligations relating to our compliance with these regulations. Complying with changing regulatory requirements requires us to incur substantial costs, exposes us to potential regulatory action or litigation, and may require changes to our business practices in certain jurisdictions, any of which could materially adversely affect our business operations and operating results. If our business continuity and disaster recovery plans are not effective and our global delivery capability is impacted, our business and results of operations may be materially adversely affected and we may suffer harm to our reputation. Our business model is dependent on our global delivery capability, which includes coordination between our main operating offices in India, our other global and regional delivery centers, the offices of our clients and our associates worldwide. System failures, outages and operational disruptions may be caused by factors outside of our control such as hostilities, political unrest, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, pandemics and public health emergencies, such as the coronavirus, affecting the geographies where our operations and transmission equipment is located. Our business continuity and disaster recovery plans may not be effective at preventing or mitigating the effects of such disruptions, particularly in the case of a catastrophic event. Any such disruption may result in lost revenues, a loss of clients and reputational damage, which would have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. A substantial portion of our employees in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and other jurisdictions rely on visas to work in those areas such that any restrictions on such visas or immigration more generally or increased costs of obtaining such visas may affect our ability to compete for and provide services to clients in these jurisdictions, which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. A substantial portion of our employees in the United States and in many other jurisdictions, including countries in Europe, rely upon temporary work authorization or work permits, which makes our business particularly vulnerable to changes and variations in immigration laws and regulations, including written changes and policy changes to the manner in which the laws and regulations are interpreted or enforced, and potential enforcement actions and penalties that might cause us to lose access to such visas. The political environment in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries in recent years has included significant support for anti-immigrant legislation and administrative changes. Many of these recent changes have resulted in, and various proposed changes may result in, increased difficulty in obtaining timely visas that impact our ability to staff projects, including as a result of visa application rejects and delays in processing applications, and significantly increased costs for us in obtaining visas. For example, in the United States, the current administration has implemented policy changes to increase scrutiny of the issuance of new and the renewal of existing H-1B visa applications and the placement of H-1B visa workers on third party worksites, and has issued executive orders designed to limit immigration. In addition, the administration has proposed for implementation in 2020 a policy change applicable to entities where more than 50% of the workers in the United States hold certain types of visas that, if implemented, would significantly increase the visa costs for such entities. In the EU, many countries continue to implement new regulations to move into compliance with the EU Directive of 2014 to harmonize immigration rules for intracompany transferees in most EU member states and to facilitate the transfer of managers, specialists and graduate trainees both into and within the region. The changes have had significant impacts on mobility programs and have led to new notification and documentation requirements for companies sending professionals to EU countries. Recent changes or any additional adverse revisions to immigration laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we operate may cause us delays, staffing shortages, additional costs or an inability to bid for or fulfill projects for clients, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Anti-outsourcing legislation, if adopted, and negative perceptions associated with offshore outsourcing could impair our ability to serve our clients and materially adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. The practice of outsourcing services to organizations operating in other countries is a topic of political discussion in the United States, which is our largest market, as well as other regions in which we have clients. For example, measures aimed at limiting or restricting outsourcing by U.S. companies have been put forward for consideration by the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures to address concerns over the perceived association between offshore outsourcing and the loss of jobs domestically. If any such measure is enacted, our ability to provide services to our clients could be impaired. In addition, from time to time there has been publicity about purported negative experiences associated with offshore outsourcing, such as alleged domestic job loss and theft and misappropriation of sensitive client data, particularly involving service providers in India. Current or prospective clients may elect to perform certain services themselves or may be discouraged from utilizing global service delivery providers like us due to negative perceptions that may be associated with using global service delivery models or firms. Any slowdown or reversal of existing industry trends toward global service delivery would seriously harm our ability to compete effectively with competitors that provide the majority of their services from within the country in which our clients operate. We are subject to numerous and evolving legal and regulatory requirements and client expectations in the many jurisdictions in which we operate, and violations of, unfavorable changes in or an inability to meet such requirements or expectations could harm our business. We provide services to clients and have operations in many parts of the world and in a wide variety of different industries, subjecting us to numerous, and sometimes conflicting, laws and regulations on matters as diverse as import and export controls, temporary work authorizations or work permits, content requirements, trade restrictions, tariffs, taxation, anti-corruption laws (including the FCPA and the U.K. Bribery Act), government affairs, internal and disclosure control obligations, data privacy, intellectual property and labor relations. We are subject to a wide range of potential enforcement actions, audits or investigations regarding our compliance with these laws or regulations in the conduct of our business, and any finding of a violation could subject us to a wide range of civil or criminal penalties, including fines, debarment, or suspension or disqualification from government contracting, prohibitions or restrictions on doing business, loss of clients and business, legal claims by clients and damage to our reputation. We face significant regulatory compliance costs and risks as a result of the size and breadth of our business. For example, we commit significant financial and managerial resources to comply with our internal control over financial reporting requirements, but we have in the past and may in the future identify material weaknesses or deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting that causes us to incur incremental remediation costs in order to maintain adequate controls. As another example, we had to spend significant resources on conducting an internal investigation and cooperating with investigations by the U.S. DOJ and the SEC, each of which is now concluded, focused on whether certain payments relating to Company-owned facilities in India were made in violation of the FCPA and other applicable laws. Various governmental bodies and many customers and businesses are increasingly focused on environmental and social issues, which has resulted and may in the future continue to result in the adoption of new laws and regulations and changing buying practices. If we fail to keep pace with these developments, our reputation and business could be adversely impacted. Changes in tax laws or in their interpretation or enforcement, failure by us to adapt our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements to achieve global tax efficiencies or adverse outcomes of tax audits, investigations or proceedings could have a material adverse effect on our effective tax rate, results of operations and financial condition. The interpretation of tax laws and regulations in the many jurisdictions in which we operate and the related tax accounting principles are complex and require considerable judgment to determine our income taxes and other tax liabilities worldwide. Tax laws and regulations affecting us and our clients, including applicable tax rates, and the interpretation and enforcement of such laws and regulations are subject to change as a result of economic, political and other factors, and any such changes or changes in tax accounting principles could increase our effective worldwide income tax rate and have a material adverse effect on our net earnings and financial condition. We routinely review and update our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements, including transfer pricing policies, consistent with applicable laws and regulations, to align with our evolving business operations and provide global tax efficiencies across the numerous jurisdictions, such as the United States, India and the United Kingdom, in which we operate. Failure to successfully adapt our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements to align with our evolving business operations and achieve global tax efficiencies may increase our worldwide effective tax rate and have a material adverse effect on our earnings and financial condition. The following are several examples of changes in tax laws that may impact us: •The Tax Reform Act was enacted in December 2017 and made a number of significant changes to the corporate tax regime in the United States. The U.S. Treasury department continues to issue proposed and final regulations which modify relevant aspects of the new tax regime. •In December 2019, the Government of India enacted the India Tax Law effective retroactively to April 1, 2019 that enables Indian companies to elect to be taxed at a lower income tax rate of 25.17% as compared to the current rate of 34.94%. Once a company elects into the lower income tax rate, a company may not benefit from any tax holidays associated with SEZs and certain other tax incentives, including MAT carryforwards, and may not reverse its election. As of December 31, 2019, we had deferred income tax assets related to the MAT carryforwards of approximately $176 million. See Note 11 to our consolidated financial statements. Our current intent is to elect into the new tax regime once our MAT carryforwards are fully or substantially utilized. Our intent is based on a number of current assumptions and financial projections, and if our intent were to change and we were to opt into the new tax regime at an earlier time, the write-off of any remaining MAT deferred tax assets may materially increase our provision for income taxes and effective income tax rate and decrease our earnings per share, while the loss of the benefit of the MAT carryforwards may increase our cash tax payments. •The OECD has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project and is expected to continue to issue guidelines and proposals that may change numerous long-standing tax principles. The changes recommended by the OECD have been or are being adopted by many of the countries in which we do business and could lead to disagreements among jurisdictions over the proper allocation of profits among them. The OECD has also undertaken a new project focused on “Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digitalization of the Economy.” This project may impact multinational businesses by implementing a global model for minimum taxation. Similarly, the European Commission and various jurisdictions have introduced proposals to or passed laws that impose a separate tax on specified digital services. These recent and potential future tax law changes create uncertainty and may materially adversely impact our provision for income taxes. Our worldwide effective income tax rate may increase as a result of these recent developments, changes in interpretations and assumptions made, additional guidance that may be issued and ongoing and future actions the Company has or may take with respect to our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements. Additionally, we are subject from time to time to tax audits, investigations and proceedings. Tax authorities have disagreed, and may in the future disagree, with our judgments, and are taking increasingly aggressive positions, including with respect to our intercompany transactions. For example, we are currently involved in an ongoing dispute with the ITD in which the ITD asserts that we owe additional taxes for two transactions by which CTS India repurchased shares from its shareholders, as more fully described in Note 11 to the consolidated financial statements. Adverse outcomes in any such audits, investigations or proceedings could increase our tax exposure and cause us to incur increased expense, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition. Our business subjects us to considerable potential exposure to litigation and legal claims and could be materially adversely affected if we incur legal liability. We are subject to, and may become a party to, a variety of litigation or other claims and suits that arise from time to time in the conduct of our business. Our business is subject to the risk of litigation involving current and former employees, clients, alliance partners, subcontractors, suppliers, competitors, shareholders, government agencies or others through private actions, class actions, whistleblower claims, administrative proceedings, regulatory actions or other litigation. While we maintain insurance for certain potential liabilities, such insurance does not cover all types and amounts of potential liabilities and is subject to various exclusions as well as caps on amounts recoverable. Our client engagements expose us to significant potential legal liability and litigation expense if we fail to meet our contractual obligations or otherwise breach obligations to third parties or if our subcontractors breach or dispute the terms of our agreements with them and impede our ability to meet our obligations to our clients. For example, third parties could claim that we or our clients, whom we typically contractually agree to indemnify with respect to the services and solutions we provide, infringe upon their intellectual property rights. Any such claims of intellectual property infringement could harm our reputation, cause us to incur substantial costs in defending ourselves, expose us to considerable legal liability or prevent us from offering some services or solutions in the future. We may have to engage in legal action to protect our own intellectual property rights, and enforcing our rights may require considerable time, money and oversight, and existing laws in the various countries in which we provide services or solutions may offer only limited protection. We also face considerable potential legal liability from a variety of other sources. Our acquisition activities have in the past and may in the future be subject to litigation or other claims, including claims from professionals, clients, stockholders, or other third parties. We have also been the subject of a number of putative securities class action complaints and putative shareholder derivative complaints relating to the matters that were the subject of our now concluded internal investigation into potential violations of the FCPA and other applicable laws, and may be subject to such legal actions for these or other matters in the future. See "Part I, Item 3. Legal Proceedings" for more information. We establish reserves for these and other matters when a loss is considered probable and the amount can be reasonably estimated; however, the estimation of legal reserves and possible losses involves significant judgment and may not reflect the full range of uncertainties and unpredictable outcomes inherent in litigation, and the actual losses arising from particular matters may exceed our estimates and materially adversely affect our results of operations. Our earnings may be adversely affected if we change our intent not to repatriate Indian accumulated undistributed earnings. A significant portion of our accumulated earnings are held and ongoing earnings are derived from our operations in India. We consider our Indian accumulated undistributed earnings to be indefinitely reinvested in India. See Note 11 to our consolidated financial statements. While we have no plans to do so, we may change our intent not to repatriate such earnings. Factors that may lead us to change our intent, include, but are not limited to, changes in cash estimates, capital requirements outside of India, discretionary transactions, changes to our shareholder capital return plan and legislative developments in India and other jurisdictions. For example, the Budget, as presented by the India Finance Minister on February 1, 2020, contains a number of proposed provisions related to tax, including a replacement of the dividend distribution tax, which is due from the dividend payer, with a tax payable by the shareholder receiving the dividend. This measure is proposed to be effective for the India financial year starting April 1, 2020. We are in the process of reviewing the various tax provisions outlined in the Budget, and will finalize our assessment once the Budget proposals are passed into law by the Parliament of India. A change in our intent not to repatriate Indian accumulated undistributed earnings would result in a material increase to our provision for income taxes and a decrease in our net income and earnings per share in the period such decision is made. Item 1B.